Pub, Hedghog, Swimming, Classical Music

This entry covers a number of days and nights. First up, recollection of a few hours spent in the very comfortable surrounds of the Rose and Crown, about as good as a pub can be. I read about English pastoral oddities and hauntological culture.

Back home, a member of our resident hedgehog family came out to play, this time the youngest, and possibly stupidest (or the one least concerned with human presence) of the bunch.

The next day I took the children to 'the beach', or a small patch of mud which slopes down to the river. The day was hot, and we were not alone in swimming in the muddy water. From some slopes the mass of thick muck around your feet that almost pulls you short before your feet even reach the bottom is off-putting, while 'the beach' access is gentle, but the recommended approach is to jump straight in from the bridge, pictured to the left below. 

The next day I. and I went to museums, Pitt Rivers again. 

I was interested in the glass spear heads made by Indigenous Australians using parts of electricity pylons hacked off and then sharpened with teeth.

That night I went to the Sheldonian Theatre to see Andras Schiff perform Bach's Well Tempered Clavier, Book 2. I'd met, or at least served, Andras a few times back at my old job and he was always a very pleasant man. I also frequently listen to his recordings of the Beethoven cello sonatas, various Bach recordings and some Schubert on ECM.

It was hot in the Sheldonian, and the sun was streaming in through the windows. Intriguingly, the beams of light were striking the eyes of all those who had paid for the most expensive seats, those seated right behind the piano. The - overwhelmingly elderly white audience - in these seats all tried to deflect the sun with various objects, mostly their programs. One elderly gent had his stuffed under his spectacles, where it remained for the entire first half. See them blinded below.

At around 2 and a half hours duration, it was a rather grueling concert, but magnificent and thrilling too. Schiff caught my eye in the second half as he was playing the first piece after the interval, I wonder if he remembered me from the Harold Moores days?

I particularly enjoyed the Prelude in G Minor, here played by Angela Hewitt. I struggled through learning to play this and got about halfway before abandoning it.

The night sky around the Sheldonian was beautiful.

The next morning we went en masse to the Holywell Music Room to hear Laura van der Heijden and Petr Limonov perform Bach, Beethoven and Schnittke Cello Sonatas. 

The entire program was excellent but the Schnittke was outstanding. Initially they had to compete with nearby roadworks but these fortunately stopped once the music began. Here played by others.

Seaside

We had a rare opportunity to take an unencumbered trip to the seaside, a delight. We caught the train to the capital, and headed straight to the London Review Bookshop, surely one of the finest bookstores in the world. This joined a rather long list of outstanding bookshops we'd visited on this journey, from Blackwells to Scarthin, and many secondhand stores. The LRB shop has a fine cafe, and we spent a number of hours here.

Wandering north to the station, we saw a former residence of Bertrand Russell.

The neighbourhood is filled with English language students and was very busy, but the squares are pleasant. 

Grayson Perry was doing something in this place.

And Lenin lived here once.

Although Queen Victoria didn't live here.

Disembarking the train at Brighton, our seaside destination, we strolled down the main street. The sea air and change in scenery was most pleasant.

We once lived in Brighton and were always fond of the colourful terraces on streets leading down to the sea.

We both once worked at the Hand in Hand, a charming old pub. I had a grand time befriending the locals, drinking the Kemptown ales brewed upstairs, with DJ Tropical Breeze making an early appearance banging out tapes of reggae. Best of the locals was a blind septuagenarian dealer in maritime antiques, and we became good pals. He took me to jazz shows while I took him to amateur electronica performances, where I drunkenly played bleeps on a Dell laptop. RIP ol' George. 

Brighton always had a skanky side. Is that asbestos drooping out of the window?

I used to stroll this way home after shifts at the pub.

We bought fish n' chips and sat on the rocks.

A strange substation of some kind for the novelty seaside railway.

Shrubs growing out of the walls.

Not the Abbey Road.